Do you have a sales plan for every deal? I do, but more of that later.
OK I know some deals you can take to the bank, and others are just punts. There's no need to plan the certainties and no point in planning the ones you don't expect to get. Or that's the way it seems when you don't have the tools to fit the job.
But there is a point to a sales plan for every deal. That plan helps us figure out, ahead of time, whether we're likely to win, how we'll win and more importantly when we'll win. A clear perspective on every deal helps us make the most of our sales pipeline. We'll know when to stay with the deal when the going gets tough, and when to walk away.
With 10 or more deals in the pipeline, a clear plan helps us keep a clear head - focused on what we can do now to make the most of our opportunities. Plans also help us make more accurate sales forecasts.
In my sales plan I like to have milestones - markers to tell me how I'm doing. And I like to assign actions to each milestone - the steps I need to execute in order to reach them. Better still I like to have reminders of those actions so my success isn't dependent on my memory.
The problem, as you'll know, is recording all the information about every deal in the pipeline. Spreadsheets and calendar reminders are one way of doing it but that's hard work, and mostly doesn't work. What we sales guys need is some process for planning what should happen and reviewing whether it did. We need reminders we can rely on, so we can get on with other stuff and maybe a little time for some fun.
That's why we built Front Office Box. It allows us to plan each deal individually but still fits in with our business process.
It SIMPLY MAKES SENSE when we're struggling with multiple clients, multiple deals and our need to make the most of the opportunities we've got.
Watch the video to see how we plan each deal individually within a process which helps us stay on top.